Today's telecommunication systems make it routine for persons from different countries to communicate with each other on a regular basis. Very often, however, the parties to such a call do not speak the same language. The usefulness of today's telecommunications systems could be greatly improved if there were some way to translate communications from one language to another in a telephone network.
There have been proposals to develop computers in telecommunication systems which can automatically translate voice communications from one language into another language. These efforts are currently in a somewhat rudimentary stage and are far from becoming a commercially practical reality.
In the meantime, AT&T offers a language interpretation service which is currently a part of the AT&T switched network. Known as the AT&T Language Line.RTM. Service, it allows a caller to contact a human interpreter for assistance in making a telephone call expected to involve parties speaking different languages. The caller dials an 800 number to reach the service after which the caller gives his or her credit card or AT&T calling card number to an operator. An operator takes additional information from the caller about the call including the phone number of the called party and the languages expected to be spoken. The operator then connects the caller to a human interpreter fluent in the languages to be spoken during the phone call. The caller or operator completes the call to the called party resulting in a conference call between the caller, the called party, and the interpreter.